Business Standard Q&A with Pune’s Ganesh Natarajan on Indian IT Industry Outlook

Business Standard has an interview with Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar Technologies, and the head of the IT committee of CII, and ex-Chairman of NASSCOM, where he talks about the outlook for the Indian IT Industry, and also future plans of Zensar.

Asked whether the slowdown will affect industry this year, he said:

Two things are happening. The demand environment is still strong; there is no real slowdown in spending. There is also the impact of currency; the US dollar is high against the rupee. So, this quarter one will see better results for both reasons. Everyone is flat in terms of revenues crores. Rupee has given an artificial boost. The demand in UK and Europe is good. This year, there should be no problems. Insurance is still strong, investment banking is a little weak because people are wary of spending money. Healthcare will grow primarily because of the ageing population in the US and Europe. Next year is difficult; it will probably be different. There is a problem in Europe, and there is a cascading effect on US. So, 2012-13 will be different, but the current financial year should continue to be robust.

and here he talks about Zensar’s plans to increase ‘work-from-home’ for its employees:

Starting April, we will invest in technology, encouraging employees to work from home. In the long run, our plan is that 30 per cent of our resource-base need not come to office at least a couple of days a week. Also, we are starting to work in two cities with partners, by connecting them to our technology. This will help them work through their operations, while helping us with ours. Next year, we will start doing a lot more work through other people and through home working. This will help us not just keep costs down, but also help us tap into a larger talent pool across multiple cities.